Garcia’s disbelief increased. ‘Have you lost your mind? The Doc just told us that those coordinates point to a location somewhere inside Deukmejian. You’ve been there before, right? It’s rugged terrain, Robert. Rocky in places, hard ground in others . . .’ He shrugged. ‘You probably know this, but by hand and in “optimum soil”, it takes an experienced gravedigger around six hours to dig a six-foot grave. How much experience do you have with a shovel?’
‘A little,’ Hunter replied.
‘Which is also known as – not enough,’ Garcia came back. ‘Well, me neither. It will probably take the two of us a full day of solid work to dig a grave. We’ll be up there for the rest of today, all of tonight and probably the whole of tomorrow as well. We need a pro digging team, Robert.’
‘You’re right, and I appreciate your argument,’ Hunter said. ‘But there are a couple of things that you’re forgetting.’
‘Really? Like what?’
‘It might not be optimum soil up there,’ Hunter began. ‘But we won’t be digging untouched ground. We’ll be re-digging pre-disturbed soil, which makes the job considerably easier. And we’ve been to a few sites where the perpetrator had dug a makeshift grave to hide a body, or remains of such, remember?’
‘Yes, of course I do.’
‘Then you’ll also remember that those graves were all shallow graves. Not once have we encountered any that were deeper than two, three feet at a push, and that fact repeats itself across the board for the exact same reason you’ve just mentioned – it takes an experienced gravedigger around six hours to dig a six-foot grave by hand in optimum soil. An inexperienced digger, in rugged terrain?’ Hunter shook his head. ‘It would take him a full day, if not longer.’
Garcia scratched the underside of his chin.
‘If he was digging in his backyard then maybe,’ Hunter continued. ‘But we’re talking about a public park here. Yes, there are several very secluded areas up there, but it’s still a public park. No one would risk spending a full day digging a grave to hide a body in a public park. A few hours, sure, but not a full day. I’d be very surprised if we need to dig any deeper than two and a half feet.’
Garcia couldn’t argue with his partner’s logic.
‘Where are we going to get shovels and everything else we need?’ he asked.
Hunter looked at Dr. Slater.
‘We’ve got them,’ she said, nodding at Hunter. ‘We’ve got a couple of vans downstairs loaded with digging equipment. You can borrow whatever you need.’
Garcia threw his head back and closed his eyes. This battle was already lost.
Six
From one of the forensics vans parked at the back of the Hertzberg-Davis Forensic Science Center, Hunter and Garcia borrowed a couple of shovels, two heavy-duty pickaxes, two pairs of thick gardening gloves, two crowbars and two double-bulb headlamp units.
With everything loaded into the trunk of his car, Garcia entered the coordinates cited in the notebook into his satnav system.
The park itself occupied a rugged 709-acre site in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains at the northernmost extremity of Glendale. Though the park included a few isolated streamside woodlands, it was predominantly chaparral and sage scrub, not to mention all the rocks and hills.
‘Definitely not the best of terrains for digging,’ Garcia said, as they finally reached Dunsmore Canyon Trail, the road that took them through the park.
‘That’s for sure,’ Hunter agreed. ‘But there are several pretty secluded areas off the main trail, some of them small woodlands with softer soil, and those are scattered all throughout the park. I have no doubt that was why this place was chosen.’
Garcia tilted his head to one side ever so slightly in a ‘maybe’ gesture.
‘If this craziness turns out to be real, Robert,’ he said. ‘If somebody did actually deliver that . . .’ Garcia paused for a second, trying to choose his words. ‘ . . . “Diary of Death” to Dr. Slater, then I’ve got two questions swimming around in my head.’
‘Who delivered that package to her mailbox?’ Hunter beat him to the punch. He was thinking about the same thing.
‘That’s definitely question number one,’ Garcia agreed. ‘Was it the person who made those entries to that notebook? In that case – the killer himself. Was it someone who was working with the killer and decided to jump ship? Was it some pour soul who came across that diary somewhere? Who?’
Hunter’s stare focused on the flora outside his window.
‘And then there’s prize question number two,’ Garcia continued. ‘Why deliver it to the Doc?’
‘I’m not sure,’ Hunter finally replied, not wanting to speculate.
‘Well, I can think of only two possible scenarios,’ Garcia proceeded. ‘Either, for some reason, whoever delivered that notebook to her mailbox really wants her to be involved in whatever madness this might turn out to be, or the person knows her. Maybe the person in question doesn’t know her personally,’ Garcia admitted. ‘Maybe they only know what the Doc does for a living – this person could’ve seen the Doc on TV, on an interview. He or she could’ve attended one of her lectures, or read one of her papers or studies . . . I don’t know.’ He checked his satnav again. They were almost there. ‘But the person probably somehow knows that she is a great forensic scientist and that she’s part of the LAPD FSD. If that person wanted the notebook to be looked at and examined straight away, dropping it in her mailbox would certainly do the job a lot faster than sending it over to the LAPD or the FBI.’
‘That’s true,’ Hunter agreed. ‘But what bothers me is – why deliver it to her house? Why not send it to the FSD Criminalistics Lab? If the person wanted Susan to look at that notebook ASAP, all they needed to do was address the package to her and write the word “urgent” on it. That would’ve done the trick. Why was it delivered to her house?’
Still on Dunsmore Canyon Trail, Garcia geared down. On his screen, the checkered flag that marked the destination was off-road directly to their left, about thirty-five yards into the chaparral. There was no turning, no road or track that would lead them there. The only way to get to the location shown on the satnav’s screen was to leave the car by the side of the road and carry on the rest of the way on foot – and even then, there was no visible footpath. They would have to create their own trail through the shrubs and the heavy rocky terrain.
And that was exactly what they did.
In places the vegetation was so dense that both detectives were forced to use their shovels as improvised machetes. Though their eyes searched the ground as they walked, neither Hunter nor Garcia were really expecting to find any real signs of anyone having been through there before. First: whoever had written that entry could’ve used a number of different paths to reach the location shown on Garcia’s screen. Second: the date mentioned in the entry took them back to over two years ago. Any marks or signs that might’ve been left behind would’ve been completely erased by the elements by now.
It wasn’t exactly what Angelenos would consider a warm day. The weak sun above their heads made it a very comfortable fourteen degrees Celsius, but still, the rough terrain coupled with the heavy tools they were carrying was already making them sweat.